Sometime in the future the fireman's role has changed from stopping fires to starting them: the material being all books or printed matter of any kind. Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which books burn. But Montag the fireman is beginning to have doubts about his role ...

Dark futuristic tale dramatised for radio by Gregory Evans and starring Michael Pennington. 

Cast: 

Montag - Michael Pennington 

Millie - Pamela Salem 

Beatty - Peter Miles 

Narrator - Jonathan Newth 

Clarisse - Patience Tomlinson 

Medic/Announcer - Spencer Banks 

Stoneman - Michael Simkins 

Woman - Susan Dowdall 

Faber - Peter Tuddenham 

Granger - Hugh Dickson 

Simmons - Alan Dudley 

Director - Brian Miller 

Bradbury observed many years later: “ In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down kerbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there.

Saturday-Night Theatre

BBC Radio 4 FM, 13 November 1982 20.30

1 hour, 30 minutes